September 05, 2009

the Month in Review 6/25/09-Victory Road

Originally posted on www.TNAwrestlingnews.com on 7/23/09.
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the Month in Review
6/25/09-Victory Road

by
FK9
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6/25/09 iMPACT

-the Knockouts tag match was the highest rated segment last week and it wasn’t even close. You really have to wonder why their matches aren’t given more time when the women are obviously still drawing so well.

SARITA HYPE VIDEO
-Sarah Stock. Finally. Thank God.

-correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the first time TNA has ever built up a new female talent’s debut with hype videos like this. It’s very nice to know that even though she was pushed out of the top babyface spot by Tara, TNA still plans to make a big deal out of Sarah Stock. She’s certainly worth the hype, as you will all soon find out.

-3 weeks. She debuts in 3 weeks and it is about damn time. Set your watches and mark your calendars, people.



MATCH OF 10,000 TUMBTACKS: TAYLOR WILDE vs. DAFFNEY
-dear God… I honestly cannot believe this. Couldn't they keep Taylor & Daffney off the show for ONE WEEK to sell the Monster's Ball? Taylor had to be carried out of the arena at the PPV and now it’s like all that punishment meant nothing. And they have Daffney sell the devastation of being slammed on thumbtacks by having her compete in a 10,000 Thumbtacks match, making that sick bump in the Slammiversary match mean absolutely nothing. What a waste. 



-this is TNA Booking 101 -- book a gimmick match and then present it in such a way that not only makes it mean nothing but also negates the importance of previous and future gimmick matches on top of that, completely defeating the purpose of doing gimmick matches in the first place. 



-counting this one, Taylor & Daffney have had five matches in this feud and of those five, THREE of them have been gimmick matches. A Monster's Ball, a regular match, a tag match, another Monster's Ball and now a 10,000 Thumbtacks match, all in 2 months. What kind of weird, crazy booking is this? That is too many freaking gimmicks! What's next? Are they going to have an electrified barb wire massacre exploding death match at Victory Road? Where does it end?

-no wonder they didn’t promote it ahead of time. This match was so short you probably missed the whole thing if you ran to the fridge to grab a beer during the entrances. Why even do it all then?

-remember when the Match of 10,000 Tacks was something special that TNA would build up to over time and then do on PPV? Sigh…

-having said all that, I take my hat off to Daffney for taking 2 thumbtack bumps in 48 hours. If she doesn’t get a huge push after sacrificing her body like that then there’s something seriously wrong with this company.



BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-crap. The thrones are back. I was hoping we’d seen the last of those things. They just look so cheesy.

-Tara is short for tarantula? Oh no. I don’t like where this is going. I. Hate. Spiders.

BOOKER T & SHARMELL BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-Sharmell vs. Jenna Morasca at Victory Road? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

-TNA, I really want to believe that you’re not stupid enough to do this. But in the event that you are actually considering it, please, for the love of God, believe me when I say that nobody, Nobody, NOBODY, N-O-B-O-D-Y wants to see Sharmell vs. Jenna Morasca on PPV. Or on iMPACT. Or ever. Period.

-it’s a woman the fans don’t like vs. a woman the fans don’t give a rat’s ass about. Both are heels and neither of them are wrestlers. I honestly cannot fathom any circumstances that could ever lead to any pro wrestling writer thinking that putting this match on a show that they want the fans to pay money to see is actually a good idea.

-TNA, if you have Sharmell wrestle Jenna Morasca at Victory Road you are going to embarrass yourselves. Badly. If you absolutely have to book this match for some ungodly reason then do it on iMPACT or on the pre-show or something. If you ask your fans to pay money to see this abortion you are going to royally piss them off. Don’t do it. I mean it.
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7/02/09 Webmatch

MADISON RAYNE vs. ODB (w/ CODY DEANER)
-we’ve seen ODB wrestle in webmatches more often than on TV lately. I wonder if that’s significant. At any rate, she seemed to be more over in this match than she’s been lately.

-why didn’t Rayne come out to TBP’s music? Stuff like this just encourages the perception that Rayne is more of a flunky for V & A than a 3rd member, and as soon as I type that Mike Tenay says that it seems like Rayne is taking a backseat to her My Pi Sexy cohorts. This could be a storyline, but I’d rather they not go that route. Rayne is over thanks to being in TBP, but it’s questionable whether she would get over on her own.

-say what you want about the Cody Deaner character/gimmick, but the fans in the iMPACT Zone really seem to dig this guy. He can get the crowd into him and he can get the crowd into ODB.

-okay match, but I don’t know if there’s much future in Rayne as a singles competitor.


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7/02/09 iMPACT

-the Knockouts tied Sting confronting the MEM for highest rated segment of the show last week. Remind me again, why are their TV matches so short?

-reports are surfacing that TNA plans to drop the Raisha Saeed gimmick and let Melissa be herself on TV going forward. Oh, wow… Oh, man... Sarah Stock and Melissa on the same roster at the same time? I never thought this day would come. TNA, if this is a tease, if this is a joke, if this is your idea of some sick little rib on the IWC, there will be consequences. I will get you; do you understand? I don’t know how, but I will get you. Believe it.

-said reports indicated that Melissa, wrestling under a new name, faced Sarah Stock at the last TV tapings. Sarah won the match, but Melissa attacked her and laid her out afterward. This is very, very encouraging. 1st, since Melissa is never seen on TV unless she’s playing Raisha Saeed there would be no reason to have her attack Sarah post-match like that even if it were just a dark match. 2nd, if they gave Melissa a new name that could mean they want her to have a name they can license since TNA likes to own their characters’ names. If they do have plans to use Melissa on TV then this all adds up perfectly. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this is happening just a few weeks after Melissa had that dark match with Awesome Kong that reportedly blew the roof off the iMPACT Zone. I bet that match opened a lot of people’s eyes backstage.

-could TNA be going with a Sarah/Melissa feud? Quite possibly if this information means what it looks like it means. Sweet Jesus… if those 2 have a feud on TV and if it’s booked with anything even approaching competence (a big IF, I know), it’s going to produce some FANTASTIC matches. I’m foaming at the mouth, just thinking about it.

-new intro video to start the show. All footage of Christy Hemme has been removed. A sign of things to come? Possibly.

ABYSS & LAUREN BACKSTAGE SEGMENT
-I know this is cheating a little bit since Lauren isn’t technically a Knockout, but she’s so good in these segments that I can’t help it. The great acting of Lauren, Daffney, Abyss and Stevie Richards has saved this storyline from being the disaster it probably would’ve been otherwise.

CODY DEANER (w/ ODB) vs. AMAZING RED
-okay, I have to ask, who is the nimrod that booked this match? Deaner has shown signs of getting over as a babyface and he’s paired with ODB whose always been very popular, so they decide to have him face Amazing Red, who the iMPACT Zone crowd loves to death, completely stifling any babyface reaction that Deaner was getting. When he was on the offense against Red the crowd was booing him. So what was the point of this? Would it have been so hard to have Deaner face a heel like Brutus Magnus or Kiyoshi or something?

-I wonder if they have more in mind for ODB than standing at ringside when Deaner wrestles. It doesn’t look like it right now.



SOJOURNER BOLT INTERRUPTS A JENNA MORASCA BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-they acknowledge that Morasca & Sharmell are not wrestlers. Um… okay. So why should we want to see them fight on PPV then?

-and just when you thought this couldn’t possibly get worse, they decide to add Bolt (who apparently is back to being a heel. Again.) to the mix, putting her in Sharmell’s corner. So Sharmell is going to be trained to wrestle by a crappy wrestler who has never gotten over and hasn’t won a match in months? And I should pay $30 to see this WHY exactly?

-just for the record, by my count this is Bolt’s 3rd heel turn in less than a year. I guess you could call it the 2nd, since her 3rd babyface run was kind of unofficial and only lasted for 2 webmatches and a title shot against Angelina, but I think you can count it. At this rate she’s going to surpass the Big Show pretty soon for the record of how many turns a wrestler can do in their career after the audience has completely stopped caring.

SARITA HYPE VIDEO
-2 weeks to go. Can. Not. Wait.

-wishful thinking here. Is there any chance that we could have Sarah Stock & Melissa show up at Victory Road with weapons and beat Sharmell, Bolt and Morasca half to death so that they’re laid up in a hospital ICU until their contracts expire? Nothing would get them over as babyfaces faster than that. And Melissa breaking Sharmell in half with the kudo driver – THAT is something I would pay $30 to see.

VELVET SKY & ANGELINA LOVE © (w/ MADISON RAYNE) vs. TARA & AWESOME KONG (w/ RAISHA SAEED)
-solid if unspectacular match and the clean finish was very refreshing. However, none of TBP match up particularly well with Awesome Kong, which is a problem if this feud is going to continue.

-I know she’s only had 3 matches in TNA so far, but Tara just isn’t striking me as “top Knockout babyface” material yet. She hasn’t been BAD, but she hasn’t been super impressive yet either. I’m still waiting to be wowed by her.

-is it just me or have TBP been noticeably depushed since Tara showed up?

-UGH… Spiders are the most vile, repulsive creatures on earth. I’m suddenly feeling very sympathetic toward My Pi Sexy.



ANGELINA LOVE BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-Angelina is freaking out about the tarantula and I’m right there with her; those things are revolting. Angelina just became the babyface in this feud as far as I’m concerned.

ABYSS IN RING PROMO. DR. STEVIE APPEARS ON THE SCREEN HOLDING LAUREN HOSTAGE
-again, I’m kind of cheating here, but I don’t care. This was a great segment and creepy as hell. TNA has made better use of Stevie Richards in a few months than WWE did in several years, and if Lauren wanted to leave the wrestling business and become a professional actress she could seriously do it.


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7/09/09 iMPACT

JENNA MORASCA, RAISHA SAEED & AWESOME KONG BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-Morasca has hired Kong & Saeed to train her for her “match” with Sharmell at Victory Road, so apparently Morasca is the babyface in this feud. I still think there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the fans will pop for Morasca during this thing, but they’ll be much more likely to piss all over Sharmell, considering how unbelievably annoying she is, so I guess this makes sense.

-at least now there’s a chance that we might get to see Kong awesome bomb the crap out of Sharmell and Bolt at Victory Road. That wouldn’t make up for putting this abortion on PPV in the first place, but it’s something.

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE BACKSTAGE SEGMENT
-Velvet’s pissed that Angelina didn’t have her back when Tara broke out the spider last week and they tease dissention between the 2. It’s good that the writers aren’t just forgetting about that angle, but I hope they’re not breaking up My Pi Sexy as this gimmick has always been a heat magnet. Plus, Angelina would do just fine on her own, but without TBP gimmick Velvet & Madison would probably backslide into Sojourner Bolt territory pretty quickly and there’s no point in letting that happen if you can avoid it.

SARITA HYPE VIDEO
-this was the best video yet and Mike Tenay announcing it beforehand made it look important. They’re treating Sarah Stock’s arrival like a big deal, just as it should be.

-7 more days until Sarah Stock is on my TV, hopefully having her first match against the debuting repackaged Melissa. Damn, I’m excited for this!

TARA vs. VELVET SKY (w/ ANGELINA LOVE © & MADISON RAYNE)
-pretty short match. It was okay while it lasted, but not much more than that. Did we really need to see THAT many close ups of the spider? Ugh…

-Angelina gives Tara her title match, proving that she has Velvet’s back. Let that be the end of the dissention among the heels. There’s really no reason to break up TBP right now.

TARA vs. ANGELINA LOVE © (w/ MADISON RAYNE)
-well, that was underwhelming. Was there something wrong with building up anticipation for this match and then doing it next week or, God forbid, on PPV? By that same token, couldn’t they have given a match where a title changes hands a little more than 4 freaking minutes? A championship match doesn’t mean anything when it’s so damn short. I remember when the Knockouts title changing hands was treated like a really huge deal. That is not the case anymore unfortunately.

-Don West says it’s unfair that Tara is allowed to put giant spiders on her opponents, but Madison Rayne isn’t allowed to grab a foot without being sent to the back. I know West is the heel announcer, but that’s actually a really valid point.

-the match was relatively solid for the brief time it was given but it wasn’t that great. Granted though, it wasn’t given nearly enough time to be a great match. It was better than the disappointing Slammiversary match, but only because there was no outside interference this time.

-this was a pretty unceremonious way to dethrone Angelina. She deserved much better than to be a transitional champion.

-Tara looks pretty emotional after the match. Considering how she was treated in WWE for the last several years, it’s a safe bet that emotion is genuine.

-I don’t agree at all with the timing or execution of this title change, but Tara is now the 5th woman in history to hold the Knockouts championship, so congratulations to her.



TARA BACKSTAGE INTERVIEW
-at least they’re showing Tara being thrilled after the match, which puts over the championship and keeps the title change from being completely forgettable.

-enjoy that title while you can, Tara, because the woman who’s going to take it from you, as well as your spot as top Knockout babyface, debuts next week and she’s bringing Cheerleader Melissa with her.

-STOP SHOWING CLOSE UPS OF THAT DISGUSTING SPIDER!
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7/16/09 Webmatch

SOJOURNER BOLT vs. AWESOME KONG
-we’re only a few hours away from the iMPACT debut of Sarah Stock & Cheerleader Melissa and they make us suffer through one last Sojourner Bolt match before they give it to us. The TNA writers are cruel SOBs.

-remember the last time these 2 had a match? Remember what a train wreck it was? Is anyone really surprised that the writers never booked a rematch until now and aren’t even airing it on iMPACT?

-Kong just looks bored during her entrance and she’s not even wearing her gloves. She’s obviously not taking Bolt seriously at all.

-conspicuous by her absence is Raisha Saeed… and no sooner do I type that does Mike Tenay say, “Conspicuous by her absence is Raisha Saeed.” LOL. I’m crossing my fingers that they’re doing some kind of duel identity gimmick with Melissa/Saeed rather than simply having Saeed disappear. There’s a really hot feud in the cards for Kong & Melissa if they do a breakup/unmasking angle. To have Saeed just go away would be a big wasted opportunity.

-Don West says that a Tara/Angelina rematch has been booked for Victory Road. Strange that they had the title change last week and now they’re having the rubber match on PPV. Why not save the title change for PPV and then have the rubber match on iMPACT? Or on another PPV? This is eerily similar to what they did with Kong & Taylor Wilde this time last year – Taylor lost the 1st match on iMPACT, then instead of saving the rematch for Victory Road, they had it on iMPACT again. Taylor won the title and then they had the rubber match at Victory Road despite already having the big payoff on free TV. This is almost the same exact thing. It seems like the writers would rather do what’s surprising than what would make the company the most money. Strange…

-pretty much a run of the mill Kong vs. fill-in-the-blank jobber match. Bolt didn’t get much offense, there were no botched spots and she wisely didn’t try to go high risk this time, which makes this an improvement on their awful Destination-X bout. Of course, it would almost have to be.

-“Right now, Sojo is showing Sharmell what NOT to do,” says Don West. HAH! Good one, Don! Wow, they’re not even trying to hype Bolt up anymore, are they?


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7/16/09 iMPACT

-Yes! Tonight’s the night! Sarah Stock debuts against Cheerleader Melissa! It feels like I’ve been waiting for this for ages. All you people who felt embarrassed to be women’s wrestling fans after watching that crap T & A 6-Diva bikini tag match on Raw and Nikki Bella slip and fall off the ring apron on ECW, pay close attention to what you’re about to see. My girls are about to show you how it’s really done.

-looks like they’re going to be calling Melissa “Alissa Flash”. Sigh… “Alissa” is all right. But “Flash”? Alissa FLASH? Couldn’t they have given her a name that sounded more menacing and fit her persona better? Alissa Cole, Alissa Rex, Alissa Severs – something like that would’ve been just fine. “Flash” sounds like something they stuck her with because they were just trying to be funny. Is she going to do a storyline where she goes to a New York City high school and shoves Peter Parker in a locker? Flash? Seriously? Whatever… after making us suffer through Raisha Saeed for the last 18 months they can call her Blanche Dubois for all I care as long as they get her on television. Melissa/Alissa finally gets to be herself. End of story.

SARITA BACKSTAGE PROMO
-she seemed kind of nervous here. It’s her debut, so I’ll chalk that up to 1st night jitters. Plus, she’s accustomed to cutting promos in Spanish, which might have had a bit to do with it.

-looks like she’s a babyface. So I guess Melissa/Alissa will be a heel, which is perfect.

-I’m glad she’s speaking English. I was a little worried that they would have her only speaking Spanish to cater to the Hispanic demographic. That would be limit her. She’s bilingual, so use that.

-they say this is also Alissa’s debut. Yes! That must mean they have plans to use her beyond this show. I suspected as much, but it’s very nice to have confirmation.



SHARMELL (w/ SOJOURNER BOLT) & JENNA MORASCA (w/ RAISHA SAEED & AWESOME KONG) SITDOWN INTERVIEW
-what is this, iMPACT or Jerry Springer? Good God, this was horrible. Absolutely horrible. And the video package that preceded it only served to remind everyone just how incredibly pointless this feud is and how little mileage there is in it (none).

-to be fair, Morasca seems a bit more likeable when compared to Sharmell, who comes off as self-absorbed, egomaniacal and kind of racist. I mean, come on -- “skinny white chick”? What does Morasca being Caucasian have to do with anything? If Morasca had called Sharmell a “skinny black chick” people would be calling for her head. That stuff goes both ways, you know. Can we please just not sink to that level and leave racial slurs out of this?



BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE/TARA CONFRONTATION
-funny segment. A bit campy, but funny. Angelina in a beekeeper suit made me laugh and the crowd just loves to hate My Pi Sexy.

-this was the 1st time I saw “top babyface” from Tara. The writers are doing a good job with her character. However, I might have enjoyed her outsmarting TBP more if it wasn’t so obvious that she was going to retain the title this Sunday. The heels getting the better of her here might have been a better way to hype their PPV match.

-is it just me or does Tara wear a LOT of makeup?



SARITA vs. “FUTURE LEGEND” ALISSA FLASH
-now THAT’S what I’m talking about! Great match! Probably the best Knockouts match of the year so far. Both women looked awesome, but Sarita was especially impressive. That was the first time I’ve ever seen a woman do a suicide dive on a mainstream wrestling show; I just wish the announcers had made a bigger deal of the moves she was pulling out. Very impressive debut for her and for Alissa as well. The match only got about 5 minutes, but those were 5 damn good minutes. Just imagine what they could do with more time.

-remember when I said that I was still waiting to be wowed by Tara? The stuff Sarita did in this match is what I was talking about. Like I said in a previous column (KNOCKED OUT: Victoria vs. Sarah Stock), Sarita is incredibly exciting to watch and she just made my point for me.

-Don West said he wouldn’t be surprised to see both women in the Knockouts title picture before long. Testify!

-the crowd booed Alissa. They popped for Sarita’s entrance and chanted her name. They were into the match from bell to bell. Both women are over already and it was only their first official match. Suck it, WWE Divas.

-for the record, they both have really good entrance music too, which was something I was concerned about. TNA has really improved the quality of their entrance themes in the last year or so.

-point of interest: “Future Legend” isn’t a gimmick. The Future Legend award was given to Melissa/Alissa at the Cauliflower Alley Club in 2004. She was the first recipient of that award, in fact.

-whoever formatted the show put this match on the screen at the top of the hour, 10:00 pm. They usually have a commercial break at that time, which is idiotic because you lose all the people who start channel surfing after their show ends at 9:57 pm. I’ll be very interested to see what the quarter hour ratings are when they come out. I expect they’ll get a noticeable increase in the 10:00-10:15 segment and this match deserved it.

-the addition of Sarita and Alissa Flash takes the Knockouts division up about 10 notches. They are both phenomenal talents and from this point forward you will all understand why I’ve been singing their praises for months. Buckle up, people!


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7/07/19 Victory Road

KNOCKOUTS TITLE MATCH: TARA © vs. ANGELINA LOVE (w/ VELVET SKY & MADISON RAYNE)
-Angelina wasn’t a transitional champion after all! Yay!

-this was a big improvement on their first 2 matches. It got more time, there was less interference and it made for a better match. What a shocker ;). This was Tara’s best match in TNA so far and after their 1st 2 matches disappointed, they made up for it with this one. I especially liked her doing Tajiri’s tarantula hold. That was a nice touch.

-the only really bad part of the match was Tara’s missed top rope moonsalt. Seriously, she missed that thing by a mile. She was so far off that Angelina could’ve stayed right where she was and Tara still wouldn’t have come close. Angelina moved anyway though, so they covered it up fairly well. Tara gets points for effort, but still, not the greatest spot in the world.

-Angelina is now the 2nd 2 time Knockouts champ in history. I was going to say she shouldn’t have lost the title in the first place, but I think this all worked out perfectly. The babyface looks strong and gains sympathy with the fans because she was robbed of the title she’d just won, but the heel still goes over. Everybody wins.

-some people may think that Tara was screwed over by the writers here, but those people are wrong. Trust me, she gained a much bigger victory tonight with all those crowd pops she was getting. This was easily the most over she’s been yet in TNA. As the saying goes, you don’t have to go over to get over, and that was the most important thing here -- that Tara gets over like a top babyface needs to be. Now she has real motivation to go after TBP and the fans will want to see her get payback as well as the title.

-I would call this match good, if unspectacular. Unfortunately, that’s also the problem. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. It was solid, an acceptable PPV title match, but it didn’t wow me. However, that may have been a forgone conclusion as these women had the unenviable task of following Sarita vs. Alissa Flash last Thursday and, all due respect to them, but I doubt Tara & Angelina would’ve been able to top that match even under the best conditions.

-I’m not criticizing this match though. The work was good and the finish was very surprising. Angelina winning the title back was the one genuine shocker on a very predictable PPV. The implosion of the Angelina/Velvet friendship is teased again with Velvet’s botched interference nearly costing Angelina the match, but Angelina still wins the title back thanks to the crooked referee who TBP got into their back pocket thanks to Madison Rayne apparently giving him sexual favors in the dressing room later in the night, which positions Rayne to possibly usurp Velvet as Angelina’s new BFF sooner or later. It was convoluted, but it was logical and it made sense, which is rarely the case when these writers book convoluted stuff. The execution was very well done.

-having said all that, I really think breaking Velvet away from My Pi Sexy would be a mistake. This group is what got her over. There’s very little future in Velvet as a singles competitor and if you think the writers don’t know that, you’re nuts. I think she’s won exactly one singles match since she debuted at BFG ’07 – it was a battle royal match for a title shot and this was followed up by her losing 3 times in a row the very next week. Face or heel, I doubt Velvet would work on her own. I could see her being a popular babyface manager, but her in-ring skills aren’t strong enough to get her over based on wrestling. This could be good for Madison, but I worry what will happen to Velvet if they go through with this.

-concurrently, I have to say, I’ve never been a fan of the crooked referee angle. It will be all right if it’s just a one time thing and Slick Johnson is reprimanded on iMPACT, but this better not be an ongoing storyline. Whenever this is done we’re forced to suspend our disbelief that company management wouldn’t step in and do something about an official who is clearly not being impartial and it never makes any sense that management wouldn’t do that.

DR. STEVIE & DAFFNEY BACKSTAGE INTERVIWEW
-Daffney didn’t say much, but she can say more with her facial expressions than most people can with a promo.

-so she loves Dr. Stevie, eh? Lucky bastard. Remember your code of ethics, doc.

ABYSS (w/ LAUREN) vs. DR. STEVIE (w/ DAFFNEY)
-basically a 10 minute squash. Predictable, but the finish brought it up a bit. Like the finish of the Knockouts title match, the finish could’ve completely killed the match, but thanks to the good execution it elevated the match instead (slightly).

-Lauren played her part well, just as she has since she was brought into this storyline. However, I really don’t want to see her feud with Daffney. I can’t stand the ‘wrestler vs. broadcaster’ feud. Remember Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler? I’d really rather they NOT do that with Daffney. Lauren has value as a character, but she’s not a wrestler and Daffney is too talented to be feuding with a member of the broadcast team.

SHARMELL (w/ SOJOURNER BOLT) vs. JENNA MORASCA (w/ AWESOME KONG)
-SHOOT ME! PUT A BULLET IN MY HEAD RIGHT NOW!
-remember when I said that TNA would embarrass themselves if they put this on PPV? Good lord, I didn’t know how right I was. Leave it to TNA to put on the best Knockouts match of the year on iMPACT and then the worst women’s match since Trish Stratus vs. Jackie Gayda on PPV 72 hours later.

-Sarah Stock & Cheerleader Melissa have to settle for making their debut on free TV. 3 days later, Booker T’s wife and some chick from a reality show get a spot on PPV and make TNA’s entire audience mortified to be wrestling fans. I feel sick.

-I don’t know how they managed this, but as unspeakably awful as we all knew this thing was going to be, it was even worse. Going in, I knew that the best we could possibly hope for was that this would be a 60 second cat fight followed by Sharmell & Bolt getting awesome bombed straight to hell and the whole thing would be over and done in 3 minutes tops. Instead, the brain surgeons in the writer’s room decided to book this as an actual wrestling match and give it actual time. And yes, it was every bit as agonizing as it sounds. I think my eyes actually started bleeding as I watched this.

-a man in the front row had his back turned during the match, refusing to watch in a sign of protest. That man is my hero.

-you really have to feel bad for Awesome Kong. She deserves so much better than to be wasting her time with garbage like this.

-Sharmell even wrestled in an evening gown of all things. Apparently she wanted to go the extra mile to prove to the entire world what a complete farce this segment was.

-Jenna Morasca just might have the worst entrance music I’ve ever heard. Man that crap was bad.

-trying to critique this match would only make me want to slit my wrists, so I’m not going to do that. Suffice to say, they had exactly the wrestling match you would expect 2 women like this to have. This entire thing was a fiasco that should never have taken place.

-God bless the iMPACT Zone fans and their “boring” chants. The crowd pretty much crapped all over this thing. They booed at certain points, but most of the time they just didn’t care. The only cheers came when Awesome Kong got involved. Kong could’ve gotten a huge pop if she had torn Sharmell & Bolt to pieces after the match, so naturally that never happened. Instead we had to settle for the mild pop generated when she flattened Morasca.

-now that it’s finally over you can file this away in between ‘Misty on a Pole’ and ‘Sojourner Bolt’s Destination-X title match’ in the drawer marked ‘Most Embarrassing Moments In TNA History’.

-not to toot my own horn or anything, but in a previous column (KNOCKED OUT: Jenna Morasca… WTF?!) I basically predicted that something like this would result from putting Morasca in the ring.

-TNA, I sincerely hope that whatever meager publicity you get from putting Jenna Morasca over in a match on PPV is worth it because it’s going to take a LOT of Sarita vs. Alissa Flash matches to have any chance of erasing the memory of this debacle from my mind.

-the entire X-Division roster was kept off the Victory Road card because of this trash.

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